Reaching your audiences via mobile devices becomes more and more important all the time, as investors and consumers move away from desktops to smartphones and tablets. In our upcoming webinar, Mobile Alerts for Investor Relations, Nigel Malkin, president of Brand2Hand will discuss the growing trend to deliver breaking investor relations and other news to key stakeholders via mobile devices. Nigel will provide tips on adding SMS registration to your online investor center or online newsroom, an overview of how financial tables render on mobile devices and synchronizing your alerts with your press releases.

Register here for this free webinar, which takes place on Thursday, Sept. 27 at 1:00pm ET. We look forward to having you join us!

With the rapid proliferation of web-enabled mobile devices, your target audience is no longer tethered to their desktop computers. Keeping users informed of significant news events via their mobile devices is an essential part of proactive online communication and the newest best practice in investor relations.

As of June 2011, consumers now spend more time consuming content on their mobile devices than on desktop computers. Are you delivering your content in the most mobile device-compatible format? If you’re delivering content to mobile devices via email, the answer is a resounding NO.

The advantages of news alerts via SMS vs. email

Immediacy: An email is, on average, opened about six hours after it’s sent. By comparison, multiple studies indicate a text message is read within four minutes of receipt.

Near-perfect open rates: Most email campaigns see open rates averaging less than 20%, which indicates the vast majority of emails are never even read. By contrast, you can expect an open rate in excess of 95% for text messages. In terms of timeliness and effectiveness, there is really no comparison.

User Experience – On mobile devices, SMS works, but HTML emails ‘break’: HTML is the most common and preferred email format on desktop computers (as opposed to plain text). However, on many of the most common mobile devices your best case scenario is your HTML emails are too small to read on a mobile device and your worst case scenario is they look like a garbled mess. Thus, many among your target audience have already learned not to bother opening email-based newsletter or news alert communications on their mobile devices. Conversely, SMS was designed for mobile devices so its reliability is near perfect on mobile devices.

Direct Access to Rich Mobile-Formatted Content: When an SMS contains a mobile hyperlink or URL to additional content on a mobile-formatted website, users have learned they can simply click the link and be taken directly to a mobile-formatted website where they can expect full, rich mobile device-friendly content.

The Bottom Line:

You have a better chance of reaching your target audience of their mobile device than their desktop because that’s where they are consuming more content

You have a considerably better chance your target audience will pay attention to your message if you deliver it to them via an SMS alert that links to a mobile friendly version of your news